Jennifer Bray-Weber's Blog, page 101

Link Of The Week

http://750words.com/about

I’m so excited I found this link for this week! It was based on an exercise given in The Artists Way called Morning Pages. The idea is to write 750 words everyday about anything- no censuring. It’s a daily free for all! Your words could be brainstorming something from your project or it could be about anything rumbling around in your head.

What about a blog? Tumbler? Well, these are possible avenues but what happens if you forget to push the “private” button? This site allows you to write and keep it to yourself but all in one place where you can check back over your words. Enjoy!!!

“I’ve long been inspired by an idea I first learned about in The Artist’s Way called morning pages. Morning pages are three pages of writing done every day, typically encouraged to be in “long hand”, typically done in the morning, that can be about anything and everything that comes into your head. It’s about getting it all out of your head, and is not supposed to be edited or censored in any way. The idea is that if you can get in the habit of writing three pages a day, that it will help clear your mind and get the ideas flowing for the rest of the day. Unlike many of the other exercises in that book, I found that this one actually worked and was really really useful.

I’ve used the exercise as a great way to think out loud without having to worry about half-formed ideas, random tangents, private stuff, and all the other things in our heads that we often filter out before ever voicing them or writing about them. It’s a daily brain dump. Over time, I’ve found that it’s also very helpful as a tool to get thoughts going that have become stuck, or to help get to the bottom of a rotten mood.”

MuseTracks Guest – Veronica Scott – Wreck of the Nebula Dream

Like Sci-Fi? Like romance? Like disastrous historic events? Well, you’re in luck. Today’s MuseTracks guest, Veronica Scott,  just so happens to write historical romance and  moonlights as a science fiction, action, adventure romance writer, too.

Let’s see how she brings all these elements together. Check out her excerpt.

Welcome, Veronica!

WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM by Veronica Scott

I’ve always been fascinated by the story of the Titanic, beginning with my childhood, since a distant relative of my grandfather’s was a Second Class passenger who survived. She also rescued a Steerage baby that was handed to her just as the lifeboat began to lower away, returning the child to its mother on board the rescue ship Carpathia. Even without the family connection, there are so many poignant tales, “what ifs” and and intriguing details about Titanic, making the whole disaster irresistible to a writer. My novel WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM is the result of my gentle obsession with the events of that fatal April 14th night, 100 years ago.

As an author, I’m drawn to science fiction and paranormal romance, so when I decided to write a re-imagining of Titanic’s events, I immediately set the plot in the far future, on a luxury spaceliner roaming the stars rather than the seas. It was a fun challenge to translate aspects of the Titanic itself into the features of my Nebula Dream.  Of course, being science fiction, the Dream is a sentient being, run by an Artificial Intelligence (AI). Nick, my Special Forces captain, spends quite a bit of time interacting with the fairly inexperienced AI early in the voyage.

Here’s an excerpt from their first conversation:

Nick came suddenly awake, sitting up, momentarily confused by his surroundings and the unfamiliar, soft bed, before falling onto the pillows again. Screwing his eyes tight shut, rubbing his temples and then the back of his neck, he tried to relieve some of the hot pain from his truly stellar hangover.

“Ship, I need headclear, fast,” he said, clearing his dry throat and hoping his stomach would stop its contortions. Was I actually mixing Suavarian brandy with Taychelle vodka last night? What, was I trying to kill myself?

“Calculated dosage coming up on the bedside server now, Captain Jameson,” answered the AI ganglion assigned to this room and his wellbeing. “Do you wish a consumable or an inject, sir?”

“Inject.” Why is the damn thing asking me – there isn’t time to wait for a consumable, my stomach wouldn’t tolerate it anyway. An inject was his only hope of not disgracing himself right then and there and losing whatever his poor gut had left. Grabbing the gleaming inject as it popped out of the retro nightstand’s top, he slammed it into his left bicep and leaned against the pillows with a groan. Within ten seconds the headclear had taken hold and he felt halfway human. Best invention in the Sectors, bar none.

“Ship, remind me not to do that again,” he said, more to himself than to the AI.

“The name is Nebula Dream.” Icicles couldn’t have been colder than the Ship’s voice.

Great, an AI with attitude. But then, what else would be expected from the premier luxury liner in the Sector?

***********************************************************

I have a feeling that if the Titanic had been equipped with an AI, she’d have been a lovely lady, with an attitude somewhere between the haughty First Class grande dames and the calm professionalism of the White Star Line officers. Sailors always speak of their ships as “she” after all!

WRECK OF THE NEBULA DREAM is available from  Smashwords ,  Amazon for the kindle and Barnes & Noble for the Nook at a special 99 cent price through May.

Here’s the story:

Traveling unexpectedly aboard the luxury liner Nebula Dream on its maiden voyage across the galaxy, Sectors Special Forces Captain Nick Jameson is ready for ten relaxing days, and hoping to forget his last disastrous mission behind enemy lines. He figures he’ll gamble at the casino, take in the shows, maybe even have a shipboard fling with Mara Lyrae, the beautiful but reserved businesswoman he meets.

All his plans vaporize when the ship suffers a wreck of Titanic proportions. Captain and crew abandon ship, leaving the 8000 passengers stranded without enough lifeboats and drifting unarmed in enemy territory. Aided by Mara, Nick must find a way off the doomed ship for himself and several other innocent people before deadly enemy forces reach them or the ship’s malfunctioning engines finish ticking down to self destruction.

But can Nick conquer the demons from his past that tell him he’ll fail these innocent people just as he failed to save his Special Forces team? Will he outpace his own doubts to win this vital race against time?

You can visit Veronica at  http://veronicascott.wordpress.com/

Dating Myself- Finding The Joy In Writing Again

Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers, “Grow, grow.”       The Talmud

 

How many of you sit at your computer and stare at a blank screen? Perhaps you have words on said blank screen, but you know it’s total crap.

I would suggest you go on a date with yourself.

Julia Cameron, who is a noted Hollywood screenwriter and director, wrote The Artists Way. It is a gem of a book. I’ve pulled it back off my shelves because I desperately need to do something different if I ever want to get back on track to being creative.

Before I begin with the meat of this article, I’d like you to get to know me a tiny bit so you can see that the writers here at Muse Tracks are the same as all of you struggling to find the road (and stay on it) to being an author.

Well, here goes…

I am a dabbler. I have a closet full of pencil sketches from copies of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings to pen and ink creations of my own imagination. I have watercolor paintings stacked at my mother’s house I dabble in textile arts and have woven, crosstitched, needlepointed, and even threaded fabrics through my paintings. I love to paint walls and decorate- my house is an ever changing canvas. Photographs clog the memory banks of my computer. Cooking is a total creative outlet for me and travel feeds my soul. Through all of this dabbling, I have learned quite a bit about the arts and am a lover of museums and artists from all walks.

While I’m a dabbler at all those things and have had varying successes at them, I consider them fun endeavors. It really doesn’t matter if I’m any good at them or not. I simply create.

Did you notice something missing?

I never once mentioned writing. I realized this while I was talking to a friend of mine the other day. We were talking about things we enjoyed and writing wasn’t on the list. He questioned me about its absence. I couldn’t answer him during that conversation, but it’s been waddling around in my head like a drunk duck ever since.

The Artists Way is a wonderful book that first and foremost gives us permission to be creative. It empowers us to delve into the fanciful, explore the beauty and remember that we are not whole if we deny this side of our being. (OK- I now officially feel like Earth Mother holding up a peace sign.) However artsy and spiritual this book may sound, the message is one that I believe everyone should hear. Is it fear, guilt, jealousy, or some other force that limits your beliefs in yourself? What causes you to self-sabotage? (My specialty) We have our own unique answers built on our own unique lives. Julia Cameron provides exercises that offer ways to inhibit the roadblocks we throw up for ourselves.

One of my favorites is dating myself. Basically, the advice is to spend time with ourselves nurturing and refilling the well of creativity.  Tomorrow I will attempt to have a date with myself all day. There will be no TV, no computer, no radio, no electronics of any type, no books- just me. The day will be spent in my garden, sitting on my back porch with a pad and paper, and visiting with my friends. I might go to an artist’s shop to wander the aisles or I might drive up to my brother’s lake house and sit on the dock. I will not think about the rest of my life. I want to remember the joy I had when writing was also simply about creating. Somehow it became about editing, publishing, marketing etc. Those issues are important, but are meaningless if it dive bombs the writing. Writing was fun, wasn’t it? It was a wonderful place to get lost in another world with characters who told us a fabulous tale. I want to get back to that.

The Byronic Hero

Song of the day: Sanctified by Nine Inch Nails

Have you heard of the Byronic Hero? A Byronic hero is a protagonist, or antihero, who is romanticized but flawed. Someone much like the Romantic hero who rejects and is rejected by the society. Someone steeped with darkened, destructive, dangerous traits.

The term Byronic hero is named for the characters often portrayed in the works of the colorful English poet, Lord Byron. If you know of Lord Byron’s excessive, reckless, and scandalous life, you would probably consider that he, himself, embodied the Byronic hero.

This archetypical character (predominately male, but sometimes female) might be:

Defiant
Jaded
Mysterious
Cynical
Charismatic
Seductive
Proud
Adaptable
Haunted
Intelligent
An outcast
Sexually dominant

Sounds like a hero I can really fall in love with.

Lord Byron summed the Byronic hero up best with the last stanza in his piece The Corsair. The Corsair is written about the privateer (or pirate – depending on who you ask) Jean Laffite.

He left a corsair’s name to other times,

Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes.

One virtue, a thousand crimes. Hmm…that describes the pirate captains in my Romancing the Pirate series quite well. I must have a thing for the Byronic hero. A tortured soul seizes my imagination and sends my heart apitter-patter. With hands tied behind my back, I would willingly follow him. *sigh*

So, who are some Byronic heroes?

Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights
The Phantom of Phantom of the Opera
Robin Hood
Severus Snape of Harry Potter
Anakin/Darth Vader
Lestat of Interview with a Vampire
Wolverine of X-Men
Xena, Warrior Princess
Scarlett O’Hara
Achilles in the movie version of Troy
And of course, Captain Jack Sparrow

Can you name a Byronic hero? Who is your favorite?

MuseTracks Link of the Week – UK Translator

Don’t people in the Untied Kingdom speak English? Well, sorta.

I found this really cool site that translates text into various dialects from the British Isles. You can talk, email, and text in Cockney, Irish, Scottish, Yorkshire, Royalty, and more. It’s purely for entertainment and loads of fun. I couldn’t stop playing around with the Jolly Well Spoken translator.

Try it out . Absolutely top hole – I have to say.

http://www.whoohoo.co.uk/

MuseTracks Guest – A.S. Fenichel – Characters You Love and the Ones You Love to Hate

Sucker for mythology, here. I also happen to like sexy love stories, too. How cool to mix the two? That’s just what author A.S. Fenichel has done – mixing Atzec mythology with erotic romance. Lucky for us, she’s out guest today.

Take it away, A.S.

Hi Jenn!

Thank you so much for having me on Muse Tracks today. I’m so happy to be here. I thought we’d have a little fun and talk about good guys and bad guys. You know, like Kevin Costner’s sexy, troubled, Robin Hood to Allen Rickman’s off the wall Sheriff of Nottingham. Or the Tim Burton 1986 Batman movie, where Michael Keaton is our Dark Knight, and how can you not love to hate Jack Nicholson as the terrifyingly crazy Joker?

In my new book, Mayan Craving, I offer you Asher Dove. He’s the sweet and sexy hero who just wants to save the woman he desires from Mictlantecuhtli, the Lord of the Dead. We meet Asher in my first book, Mayan Afterglow as the very young and quirky pilot who helps get everyone down to Mexico in one piece, the perfect little brother. Skip ahead five years, and he’s a whole different story. Asher has grown into the kind of guy who will save you from the demons and then be so furious he can barely speak, just before he cleans your wounds and takes you to bed in the sweetest possible way. J He has lost none of his charm from the first book but in Mayan Craving he’s a whole lot of hunky, and the last five years of hard labor and constant threat, have matured him, making him the perfect hero, kind, tough and just a little bit dark.

On the other hand, I found Mictlantechuhtli (meek-tlahn-tay-COO-tlee) (Mictlan) during my research into Pre-Columbian mythology. Though the book is called Mayan Craving, I borrowed Mictlan from Aztec mythology. He was a principal god to the Aztecs and often referred to as the Lord of the Dead. He’s depicted by the Aztecs as a blood splattered skeleton or a large head with big teeth and no eyes in his sockets. In some descriptions he wore a necklace made from human eyeballs. Pretty yucky stuff! He has his horrifying moments in my books, but for the most part, in both Mayan Afterglow and Mayan Craving, Mictlan appears as an extremely good looking man of about thirty. In fact he’s so perfectly handsome, he’s an abomination, and the characters find him hard to look at. When he loses his temper…well that’s another story. Mictlan has taken advantage of the End of Days, an apocalypse that occurred on December 21, 2012, in order to take over the realm of humans. He goes through ritual after ritual in an attempt to enter our world and end the reign of humankind.

Our hero (Asher) and heroine (Nancy) have their work cut out for them. They have to defeat Mictlan, save Nancy’s sister from Mictlan’s harem, and deal with their own issues of falling in love.

It’s not easy being the star of a romance novel.

Thanks again for having me here today, Jenn. It’s been a blast!

Don’t forget Mayan Craving is available in electronic formats at http://www.jasminejade.com/p-10057-mayan-craving.aspx. You will also find it really soon at http://www.amazon.com/A.S.Fenichel/e/B007W5VEXI/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 and

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/a.s.-fenichel

Here is the blurb and you can read more at my website www.asfenichel.com

Surviving the End of Days was only the beginning of the journey for Nancy. After years of searching, she’s finally found her missing sister, but when she attempts to rescue Robyn, she enters her worst nightmare. Captured by demons and about to be sacrificed, Asher is her unexpected hero. Asher’s kindness and bravery arouse her lust, and leave her wanting much more than just his friendship.

Asher has been in love with Nancy since he first laid eyes on her, but her infatuation with another man always left him standing in the background. Her sudden craving for him couldn’t turn him on more. He can’t help finding rapture with Nancy, but the attraction could only be fleeting.

While danger and passion pull them together, doubt may rip them apart. They’ll need more than a carnal connection if they’re to survive.

About the Author:

A.S. Fenichel adores writing stories filled with love, passion, desire, magic and maybe a little mayhem tossed in for good measure. Books have always been her perfect escape and she still relishes diving into one and staying up all night to finish a good story. Originally from New York, she grew up in New Jersey. She now lives in the southwest with her real life hero, her wonderful husband. When she is not reading or writing she enjoys cooking, travel, history and puttering in her garden.

Other Links

Website http://www.asfenichel.com

Blog http://www.asfenichel.com/Blog–Mayan-Mentions.html

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/A.S.Fenichel

Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/asfenichel

Confessions Of A Bored Writer

Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies.  ~Terri Guillemets

 

I have a confession to make.

I am an artist, not a business focused person. I love to draw, paint, listen to music, design rooms and decorate, cook, write, drink wine (This aids in my creativity!) do needle point and cross stitch, etc. etc. etc. In that long list, which makes this article sound like I’m composing my bio for an online dating site, there’s not one mention of anything that deals with keeping records or balancing checkbooks. If further verification were needed, all I’d have to do is ask my husband about my prowess at balancing said checkbook. Ouch! My ears are still ringing.

Ok. It’s official. I definitely have a stronger bent towards the creative side of life. Since the left side of the brain is the seat of language and processes in a logical and sequential order and the right side is more visual and processes intuitively, holistically, and randomly- my right side is the all out winner.

All that being said, I am not stupid. (Alright, stop laughing Jennifer.) I do recognize that even in the world of writing, authors need to pump up their left side and abdicate the ruling right side every once in a while.

This has been the driving force behind the last few articles I wrote dealing with data from self published authors about the sales of their books. The big conclusions that I found were that you need more than one book out there to generate a source of income, and what marketing works for one author may not work for another.

That last brilliant bit of knowledge took about 9 hours worth of research. I discovered mountains of material out there teaching you tips and techniques, and even more places that promise you for X number of dollars, they will send a release to X number of outlets and so on. It was mind numbing and mostly eye glazing with my head bobbing up and down as I fought the urge to fall into a boredom induced coma.

Even though I was studying an area of writing that intimidated me and didn’t particularly float my boat, I did find a few resources that were terrific. One author that wrote about this business side is J. Steve Miller who put things in an easy to read and understand format. An example he uses in whether to spend many hours a day blogging and building your social media presence is when he describes J. R.R. Tolkien’s life. He was a writer, poet, philosopher, professor and dedicated family man. His day consisted of long hours at the university, coming home to his wife and children whom he spent every evening with, and then writing once the children were in bed. Imagine if he used those precious few hours of working social media rather than writing his wonderful books? There is a strong belief that you should spend approximately 2 hours a day dedicated to social media- Would that work for you?

Mr. Miller also tells us about a young youth minister who wrote a book on teaching special needs children. He was turned down by traditional publishing because he had no platform to work from and they considered him to be a high risk of failure in marketing. He self published, but found he didn’t have time to blog consistently or do other typical things to help the sales of his book. Instead, he had a 1 page blog and spent his limited time emailing radio shows with a link back to his blog that also listed other radio shows he had been on to talk about his subject. As a result, he has been on several large radio shows now and continues to lengthen his credentials on his 1 page blog. This has resulted in increased sales with minimal effort on his part and he’s free to work on other aspects of his life, including writing another book

This type of information, I understand.

I also find it interesting.

http://www.amazon.com/Social-Media-Frenzy-Alternative-ebook/dp/B0074ND418/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332345786&sr=1-1

 

http://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Publishing-Profile-Authors-ebook/dp/B0052U7F06/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332345695&sr=1-1

 

Hump Day Kick Start – Sexy Diner Edition

Hump Day Kick Start for your muse, a writing picture prompt, or just a visual treat.

Song of the Day: Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash

Whew! I have to admit, this photo speaks to me. It screams sex appeal!

But what does it say to you?

Our setting appears to be a diner. It’s up to you if it is present day or if this is the Oldies but Goodies. Who is our smoldering hunk? Rat Pack-ish entertainer? Joaquin Phoenix?  Drifter? Plotter of evil?  What or who is he looking at? The menu? Another waitress? The hit he’s tailing? Do you think this is his way of asking for another cup of Joe?

Good Golly Molly! I’m dying to know your take. Let me hear from you.

Link Of The Week

 

 

 

This is a gem of a web site. It’s almost like a clearing house for a bunch of places that would benefit or interest a writer. **Be sure to check out World Book Night**

http://websitesforwriters.net/

Learning to Write Smut – MuseTracks Guest – Juliana Ross

Historical erotic romance author Juliana Ross is our special guest today, and she’s going to give us a lesson in writing sex. Not just any sex, but GOOD sex.

Welcome, Juliana!

When I began work, early last year, on the novella that would eventually become Improper Relations, I was hoping to push myself. Throw out the rule book. Write a story that stretched—even demolished—the limits I’d been setting for myself as a writer.

I wrote in the first person, something I’d never tried before. I set the book a half-century earlier than anything I’d ever written. And I decided that the heat level had to be off the charts. Not just hot, but “turn on the fan, it’s boiling in here!” hot.

There’s a big difference, however, between planning to write a smoking-hot sex scene and actually doing so successfully. As I wrote, I learned—usually by watching my sister do exaggerated spit-takes while reading my latest draft—that writing about good sex is really difficult. In fact, it’s really, really hard. (No pun intended.)

By the time I’d finished the first draft of Improper Relations, I’d learned a lot about what works—and what doesn’t work. And I’m still learning!

Here are just a few examples:

Use anatomical terms that don’t awaken your inner 12-year-old boy. If you can’t read a word without smirking, it’s likely your readers will have the same reaction. Humor can be wonderful in sex scenes, but readers should be laughing with the characters, not at them. This can be a tall order when writing historicals, since common 18th- or 19th-century terms often sound silly to modern ears.

After much dithering, I settled on a synonym (I won’t repeat it here) that was commonly used in the Victorian period to describe the male sex organ, and is still widely used today. Then and now, it’s not fit for polite company, but the alternatives made me dissolve into giggles every time I typed them out.

Avoid descriptions that are excessively clinical. In an early draft of another novel, I referred to the “clever surgeon’s fingers” of my hero, a doctor, in the context of foreplay between him and the heroine. This set off alarm bells for one of my beta readers, a lawyer who has more than a passing familiarity with medical malpractice suits. “You have to take that out,” she told me. “It makes him seem like some pervy Dr. Feelgood. Yuck!”

When it comes to descriptions of sex, I learned, neither of the participants should come across like a doctor—even if one of them actually is a doctor. Remember that clinical is the opposite of dirty. And dirty, in this context, is good.

Descriptions of how things sound can be problematic: Most readers don’t simply picture a scene—they hear it in their head as well. So restrain yourself when offering cues for the soundtrack to a sex scene, and when it comes to moments that might squick people out, turn the volume waaaay down. This is particularly true for anything involving, ahem, bodily fluids. (I find “moistly” especially troublesome.)

As I said above, these are only a few examples – but I’d love to hear your take on the principles of writing Good Smut.

Those of you who are writers: did you encounter a steep learning curve when first writing sex scenes, or was it smooth sailing from the beginning? And what about the readers out there? Do you have any suggestions on what writers should avoid if we want to keep you reading?

I’ll be giving away three copies of Improper Relations to MuseTracks readers this week—just leave a comment below to be entered in the draw.

An editor by profession but an historian by inclination, Juliana Ross lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband and young children. In her spare time she cooks for family and friends, makes slow inroads into her weed patch of a garden, and reads romance novels (the steamier the better) on her eReader.

You can find Juliana on her website , Goodreads , Twitter , Facebook and—her newest obsession— Pinterest .

You can buy Improper Relations through Carina, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and All Romance.